Not so Live from the World Track Championships..doing it, and doing it, and doing it well.

Well, the biggest story played out pretty dramatically. In the men's 100m Asafa Powell started well, but he couldn't put a good race together. In his own words he panicked, and Tyson Gay passed him for the win. In my opinion the result was Asafa Powell losing the race and Tyson Gay running well. Now the moniker of choker is on Asafa; well there were lots of expectations, justifiably, but this is still a huge accomplishment for Asafa getting his first major medal. Hopefully these guys will both be there for round two in Beijing. Congrats to Tyson, he seems like a nice guy.

In the women's 100m, a woman coached by Tyson Gay's coach did what she does best: she cleaned up Asafa's mess. In the '04 Olympics when Asafa didn't perform, Veronica Campbell stole the show for Jamaica and came out a double gold medallist. This year, when Asafa was beaten by an Amercican, Campbell edged two Americans and brought back the first 100m gold at a world championships or Olympics to Jamaica. Hopefully Sherone Simpson will get better, and these two can do the damn thing in Beijing.

As for my boy Adam Kunkel, he ran a pretty good semi in the 400m hurdles, leading just until after the last hurdle where the speedy Kerron Clement used his superior strength to power past Kunkel. Kerron is speedy and one of my favourites for gold. He's underperformed in major championships, so he should be motivated to prove himself. He's lost a bit of allure after breaking Michael Johnson's indoor 400m record, so he should be hungry. Stil, I think Kunkel can get a top 5, and possibly a top 3. He needs to run a smart race though and be smoother over the last 30 metres.

Let's handicap the race. The two Americans Carter and Clement should be the faves, then we have an Olympic champion (Sanchez), Olympic silver medallist (Macfarlane), former world junior champ (Plawgo), and a Canadian record holder all battling for the medals.

Next we have a couple of Canadian girls. 2003 100m hurdles world champion Perdita Felicien and Olympic finallist Angela Whyte. Perdita is rounding into form, and though she's not the favourite she's definitely back on the upswing the that great pre Athens 2004 season she had. As for Angela Whyte, she's always performing. She's one of those people that doesn't get that much glory, but she's always there performing. Hopefully they can make it to the finals, with Felicien having a higher likelihood. I'm tagging Felicien for a bronze.

Small notes:

In the women's 10 000m Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia almost lost her shoe, put it back on, caught up with the field, the ran a lightning last lap to kick butt.. her own that is. She was riding that bike like whoa (I'm referring to her stride).

And CBC, their coverage is kinda random. I don't know who decided which heats they would show, but they show the most random things. They need to do their research on who's actually performing well this year rather than just looking at who's done well in the past. Still, I like Don Whitman and Michael Smith.. way better than Brian Williams and Peter Berwash on TSN tennis. Shiver.